Biennial EPCA Conference 2014 in Brno

23Jun14

From 20. – 23.06.2014 the XII Biennial Congress of the European Personal Construct Association was held at the Continental Hotel in Brno, Czech Republic. After some initial trouble due to missing a bus from Prague to Brno, I was happy to find a very well organized conference right in the centre of the city. Over the days I attended a lot of inspiring talks and was especially pleased to find some German delegates with a pronounced interest in multiple grid analysis. Together with a colleague I presented a workshop and two papers also centering around the analysis of repertory grid data.

One of the social highlights of the three days was the conference party. In the Personal Construct community exists a tradition that delegates give an artistic performance on that occasion – a tradition which underlines the informal atmosphere that is characteristic for PCP conferences. This time again, there were many outstanding musical and poetical performances by many of the delegates.

As always, one may learn something new about ones own culture and ones own way of construing reality, when being abroad. For me – and I guess most vegetarians or vegans will know this situation – there was one touch of disappointment due to varying constructions with regard to food. Although having checked the vegetarian menu before the conference, there was no real vegetarian food available. I noted this to one of the organizers and she replied: „We have fish!“. It seems, that the construction of „being a vegetarian“ does include eating fish in some countries (and in some even chicken) while in others (as e.g. in Germany) it usually does not. At this point it appears, our construct of being vegetarian still might need some loosening. :) All in all, it was a great experience and I am looking forward to the ICPCP in Hertfordshire (UK) next year.